We all know that networking requires a significant amount of time, effort, and commitment. Because of that, we all want to make sure that we’re getting the highest return on investment from our networking efforts. Below, I have outlined 10 tips that will help you get the absolute most from the time you spend networking for your business.

Photo courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When asking for a referral from an associate or client, use the phrase, “Who do you know who . . .?” This is an open-ended question that works well. Do not alter the phrase. Ohter phrases have been tried, but none have produced the desired results.

Have someone else tell a group of people how good your product or service is. This beats anything you can say about yourself. Ask people who have used your products or services to talk about their experience at the next meeting.

Top business executives insulate themselves from those who may try to sell them products or services. Through word of mouth you can still increase your volume of business, because you know a hundred people, who know a hundred people, who in turn know a hundred people, and so on. The great referrals are probably not going to come from a CEO, but from someone who knows a CEO.

If you have an opportunity to distribute your materials, do it. Bring products, samples, brochures, or a presentation book to the business meetings you attend. If people can see, feel, touch, hear, or smell samples of the product or service you provide, they are more likely to use you.

Offer a special price or service to the members of your networks. If you can get the members to use you, they are much more likely to refer you.

Anyone active in networking groups can benefit by developing a presentation book, taking it to meetiings, and making sure it gets circulated.

If your product or service is conducive to this approach, tell the members of your network that you accept speaking engagements as bona fide referrals. Ask them to pitch you to the program chair of other organizations they belong to.

Meet people outside the meeting context whenever you can. Write cards or letters, send articles that might be of interest, call to check in, and let them know about local business mixers.

To get good referrals, tell people when they’ve given you a bad referral. If you don’t, you’ll keep getting bad referrals. Teach people what you consider to be a good referral.

Monitor the referrals you get. This tells you how often you get referrals, their source, quality, status, and dollar payoff. Having this information helps you focus on individuals and groups who are giving you the best referrals. This allows you to reciprocate with people who are giving you the most referrals.

Do you have additional tips for networkers to get the most from business networking? I’d love to hear your ideas–please leave your thoughts in the comment forum below. Thanks!

I have been doing video blogs for quite a few years now and a while back it occurred to me that some of the videos I’ve previously posted focus on timeless topics that deserve to be revisited and not buried way back in the video blog archive. For this reason, just this past July, I decided to occasionally feature a “classic” video blog from my blog archive and today I am sharing the second one–”How to Invest Your Time & Money for the Highest Return.”

In this video, I talk about how to invest time and money into your business in the way that will ultimately pay the highest return–education.

Many businesses fail within their first three years of existence because they only pay lip service to education yet aren’t willing to invest the time, effort, and money into learning about how to continually grow and develop in order to achieve the business goals and the vision they outlined for themselves at the start.

The fact is, people who immerse and engage in a culture of learning are much, much more successful than those who don’t. Watch the video now to learn about an action you can take this week that will help you measure whether or not you’re investing enough of your time and money into what will truly help your business earn more and achieve more.

I’m quite interested in hearing your thoughts on this video, your comments about what you currently do in order to invest in educating yourself to build your business, and also your results from carrying out the action item I explain at the end of the video. Please leave your feedback regarding any or all of these things in the comment forum below.

I recently co-authored an article about the return on investment (ROI) of membership in BNI (the organization I founded back in 1985). My readers here may find some of the results interesting:

The average amount of business gained from referrals in the last 12 months was $37,055. When asked about further orders they had received as the multiplier effect of participation, members were able to think of, on average, an additional $17,668 per year of membership.

Combining closed business in the last 12 months with the average value of 2nd and 3rd generation referrals in a year showed the true value of a seat as $54,720 per year. On average, members who were involved in the group for 7 years generated $383,038 since they joined, thereby underpinning the lifetime value of participation.

An associate of mine is conducting an independent study regarding ROI for any networking organization. He will share some of the results with me and I will publish them here on my blog. Please take a few moments to take the short survey (it will only take 3 or 4 minutes).

*** Take the SURVEY HERE ***

After you take the survey, post a message here with any questions that YOU would like to see in a future survey that I’m doing or recommending (like this one).

Social capital, otherwise known as the value behind your social contacts, can be an extremely important resource in both business and life. If you take as much care in raising and investing your social capital as you do your financial capital, you’ll experience benefits that can greatly enrich your life as well as multiply your material returns many times over.

In this short video, I explain that you don’t have to purposely become a networker to reap the benefits of social capital and I outline the four key steps to successfully building social capital.

Do you have a standout story about how investing in your social capital significantly paid off for you? If so, please share it in the comments section–I’d love to hear about it!

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